User authentication

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Require user authentication

If you’re using Mage version 0.8.4 or greater, than you can optionally turn on user authentication.

Set the following environment variable name and value:

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Set access token expiration time

You can set the MAGE_ACCESS_TOKEN_EXPIRY_TIME environment variable to customize the expiration time of a Mage access token. The value should be the length of time in seconds.

Defaults to 2592000 which is 30 days.

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Running Mage in Docker

If you’re running Mage using Docker, you can run Mage and set the environment variable in the docker run command. Follow these instructions to learn how.

Set the environment variable using -e REQUIRE_USER_AUTHENTICATION=1.

For example:

docker run -it -p 6789:6789 \
  -v $(pwd):/home/src \
  -e REQUIRE_USER_AUTHENTICATION=1 \
  mageai/mageai /app/run_app.sh mage start demo_project

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Running Mage without Docker

If you installed Mage using pip, conda, poetry, etc. and are running it using the mage start command, then you need to set the environment variable on your workstation.

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macOS

Run the following command to set environment variables:

export REQUIRE_USER_AUTHENTICATION=1

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Windows

Read Microsoft’s instructions on how to do this.

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Default owner user

When Mage starts, if there is no existing owner user, then a new user will be created with owner permissions (e.g. all permissions).

The owner user can create, edit, and delete other users.

Here are the default credentials for the owner user to sign in with:

To customize the email, password and username of the default owner user, you can configure these environment variables:

• DEFAULT_OWNER_EMAIL
• DEFAULT_OWNER_PASSWORD
• DEFAULT_OWNER_USERNAME

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Sign in page

Before using Mage, users will have to sign in at /sign-in. If you go to a page that requires authentication and you’re not signed in, you’ll be redirected to the sign in page.

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User management page

If you’re signed in as the owner user, you’ll have access to the user management page at /settings/workspace/users.

On this page, you can:

1. Add new users
2. Edit existing users
3. Reset user passwords
4. Delete users

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Roles and permissions

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Authenticated requests

If you require user authentication by turning it on via the environment variable mentioned above, then each API request the front-end client makes to the backend server will include an API key and an OAuth2 token.

The API key and OAuth2 token is used to authenticate the incoming request. If the requester doesn’t have the proper permissions, the backend server will respond with a 4XX error code.

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API errors

If a page loads and no data is visible, it could either mean there is no data or the user doesn’t have the proper permissions.

If there is no visible error message on the page, you can view the browser’s network tab and inspect the API request response to view the full error details (we’re working on showing better errors and making it easier to display them).